Kyle Rittenhouse visited former President Donald Trump at his South Florida estate on Tuesday evening, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity during an interview.
The country’s 45th president said the meeting was initiated when he received a call from the teenager, and he extended an invite for Rittenhouse to fly to West Palm Beach and sit down at Mar-a-Lago.
“Kyle, I got to know him a little bit, he called. He wanted to know if he could come over, say hello, because he was a fan,” Trump said.
Impressed with Rittenhouse, the former president heaped praise on him just days after he was acquitted on numerous counts, including murder, in the shootings of three attackers during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.
The 18-year-old’s trial brought out the worst in Democrats, the justice system and the establishment media.
Of course, if there is one person who knows about being on the wrong end of the above-mentioned entities and their ire, it’s Trump.
“He came over with his mother. Really a nice young man. What he went through — he should’ve — that was prosecutorial misconduct,” the former president said of the decision to try Rittenhouse for what was obvious self-defense for many all along.
“He should not have had to suffer through a trial for that,” Trump said of the trial, noting that had Rittenhouse not fired his rifle on the night of Aug. 25, 2020, he would not have been around to tell his side of the story.
“If he didn’t pull that trigger, that guy that put the gun to his head, in one quarter of a second, he was going to pull the trigger — Kyle would’ve been dead,” Trump said in an apparent reference to the teen’s interaction with Gaige Grosskreutz, who admitted on the witness stand that he was pointing a pistol at Rittenhouse when he was shot.
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President Trump said he met with Kyle Rittenhouse pic.twitter.com/fEvRgfPsLq
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 24, 2021
Two other men were shot by the teen that evening in Kenosha: Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber both died.
Rittenhouse, who suffered minor injuries to his head in a situation that could have been deadly for him, survived. He has a big fan in the former president.
“He was a really good young guy,” Trump told Hannity, noting that just prior to the interview, Rittenhouse had left Mar-a-Lago.
Trump then doubled down on the teen’s malicious prosecution without naming Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger.
“He should never have been put through that. That was prosecutorial misconduct, and it’s happening all over the United States right now with the Democrats,” Trump said.
It wasn’t the first time he had defended Rittenhouse. In the days after the shootings, Trump said during a White House news conference that he”probably would’ve been killed” if he hadn’t defended himself.
Not long after the teen visited the former president, images of their meeting went viral online.
Epic pic.twitter.com/0aYyS7EKzH
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) November 24, 2021
Everything that is wrong with America in one picture.
— selgnorts (@mistwhisperer) November 24, 2021
Morning America: President Trump met with Kyle Rittenhouse at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. I can't wait to see the left meltdown today 🤣 pic.twitter.com/3y719GyRXb
— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) November 24, 2021
If I say what I really want to say I would get tossed of Twitter. So I'll just go with garbage meeting garbage!
— Tammy H #Resist #Bluetsunami 🌊🌊🌊 (@tmbeanie415) November 24, 2021
It’s hard to imagine a photo taken of two people the modern American left hates more.
Rittenhouse has been featured on Fox News in primetime throughout this week. In addition to Trump’s comments about the 18-year-old, Rittenhouse appeared in a two-part interview with Tucker Carlson of which the second installment premiered on Tuesday.